3 (Million) Things I'm Thinking About When I'm Not Hating My Thighs

Confession: Some days I still obsess over my body, and my thought process goes something like this:

Am I ever going to be thin enough to want to wear a pair of jeans?

*Is it time for lunch yet?

Is she looking at my thighs?

Oh, I know, a cookie will make me feel better about my thighs!

Don't eat the cookie, Margarita. You're going to regret it.*But--and this is a BIG but--this is no longer how I spend (read: waste) all of my time. I get up every morning and make my best attempt at living a healthy lifestyle--I cook nearly all of my meals, I exercise three to five times a week, I don't smoke. In general, self-care is something I'm good at. As a result, that obsession over my body doesn't take over every single waking moment anymore. Am I at my goal weight? No. Frankly, I don't even know or care to think too much about what my goal weight is. What I do know is that I've been maintaining a 75-plus weight loss for many months now, and for today, that feels like enough. Accepting where I am today and what my body looks like today is a

daily

struggle for me. However, I know it's the difference between experiencing life and signing it over to the Devil of Not Worth It, so I work every day to turn down the volume on the body obsession, the noise, the B.S.! And many days, I'm pretty successful at it.

Here's what I've discovered happens when you don't spend all your time thinking about a.) cookies and b.) your thighs: You have to deal with everything you've been avoiding. And since I no longer believe that my body should dictate* any* of the decisions I make, I'm actually getting to face things like... 1.) Should I be dating, even though I'm pretty comfortable being alone? 2.) Should I be writing books or moving to another country or asking for a promotion? 3.) Should I be more responsible about money instead of throwing every dime at vacations, tufted furniture and Whole Foods? ... And the list goes on!

I don't know the answers to these questions--and just as I accept the circumference of my thighs exactly as they are today, I accept that my place in the universe today is OK too. Just like my body, my life isn't perfect, but I'm constantly grateful for and humbled by how good it is. The biggest gift I've gotten from weight loss is this clarity: Believing my life would be perfect if I could just lose weight was just as

untrue

as all of those other self-defeating thoughts. Come to think of it, I'm pretty glad it isn't perfect, because where would I go from there?

Can any of you relate? Do you ever feel like when you're not obsessing over your body, you have so much more time to think about the "real" issues of your life? Silly or big, what are they? (It totally helps me de-stress to write them down!)

same girl. same shirt (call me a recessionista!). whole different attitude!